John M. Sell Civil War Collectionhttp://library.csun.edu/node/3384/feed
enJohn M. Sell Civil War Collectionhttp://library.csun.edu/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/Sell
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, John M. Sell enlisted in the 83rd Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteers on July 29, 1861. He was commissioned First Lieutenant on August 27 of that year, and promoted to Captain on September 4, 1862. After fighting in numerous battles over two years, Sell was shot in the left leg on July 2, 1863 during the Battle of Gettysburg. In one of the most commonly-performed medical procedures of the war, a surgeon amputated his leg in a battlefield hospital shortly after he was shot. Sell died the following day.</p>
<p><img alt="John M. Sell" class="ImageFloatLeft" src="/sites/default/files/users/ejarosz/images/scablog/jsell_body1.jpg" />The <a href="http://findingaids.csun.edu/archon/?p=collections/controlcard&amp;id=42">John M. Sell Civil War Collection</a> consists primarily of correspondence sent back and forth between Captain Sell and members of his family throughout his service in the Civil War, especially his parents, brothers William and Charles, and sister Sarah. Letters from Sell to his family frequently contained assurances as to his well-being, and descriptions of weather conditions and skirmishes in various locations.</p>
<p>The collection also includes Sell's canteen, and several unlabeled family photographs. Wearing their finest clothing, individuals of many ages are pictured. The photos are mostly ambrotypes and daguerreotypes, the creation of which required the subject to sit unmoving for several minutes. Daguerreotypes (positive images made on copper plates coated in silver), and ambrotypes (positive images made on pieces of glass) were often housed in protective cases to prevent the image being rubbed off, tarnished, or chipped. In addition to posed family photographs, there are a few photos of a uniformed man, presumably Sell himself.<img alt="Union soldier with tattered US flag" class="ImageFloatRight" src="/sites/default/files/users/ejarosz/images/scablog/jsell_body2.jpg" /></p>
<p>After Sell's death, William H. Edmont, who was with Sell when he passed away, wrote a letter to Sell's sister, Sarah. In it, at her request, he told her about her brother's death. Edmont found John shortly after the amputation procedure was carried out by a Dr. Howards. He had recently been "removed from a barn in the vicinity," and struggled to breathe. Assuming he suffered "from the effects of his removal," Edmont called a surgeon over, who informed him Sell "would not live 10 minutes." Edmont next writes "In about that time he expired without apparently experiencing the slightest pain. He went off as calmly as I ever saw anyone – a few convulsive gasps and all was over."</p>
<p>By way of offering comfort to John's grieving sister, Edmont wrote, "I should have written ere this, offering you what little consolation lies in my power, but that I deemed you might consider it presumptuous in me, an entire stranger. As you truly say 'Gods will be done.' He knows best what is for our good, [and] as it was his will to take poor John away, we should not grieve too much over it, but bow with humble submission, [and] recollect what Jesus has taught us to say, 'Thy will be done.'"</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-exhibition-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/letter_08-13-1863.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Letter from William H. Edmont to Sara A. Sell, August 13, 1863]" title="Letter from William H. Edmont to Sara A. Sell, August 13, 1863"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/letter_08-13-1863.jpg?itok=ANM_uial" width="120" height="120" alt="Letter from Edmont to Sara " title="Letter from William H. Edmont to Sara A. Sell, August 13, 1863" /></a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/uniformed_man.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Photograph of a uniformed man, possibly John M. Sell]" title="Photograph of a uniformed man, possibly John M. Sell"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/uniformed_man.jpg?itok=COOZ6BBB" width="120" height="120" alt="Uniformed man" title="Photograph of a uniformed man, possibly John M. Sell" /></a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/boy.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family]" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/boy.jpg?itok=ymLyArcr" width="120" height="120" alt="Young man" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family" /></a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/letter_06-03-1863.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Letter from John M. Sell to his brother, June 3, 1863]" title="Letter from John M. Sell to his brother, June 3, 1863"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/letter_06-03-1863.jpg?itok=x0r1eyH4" width="120" height="120" alt="Letter from Sell to brother" title="Letter from John M. Sell to his brother, June 3, 1863" /></a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/older_man.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family]" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/older_man.jpg?itok=Qp7XGWpN" width="120" height="120" alt="Older man" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family" /></a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/seated_woman.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family]" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/seated_woman.jpg?itok=YwAL6ky9" width="120" height="120" alt="Woman" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family" /></a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/canteen.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][John M. Sell&#039;s canteen]" title="John M. Sell&#039;s canteen"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/canteen.jpg?itok=8aldd1a0" width="120" height="120" alt="Sell&#039;s canteen" title="John M. Sell&#039;s canteen" /></a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/letter_06-22-1863.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Letter from John M. Sell to his parents, June 22, 1863]" title="Letter from John M. Sell to his parents, June 22, 1863"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/letter_06-22-1863.jpg?itok=uVyqoRvI" width="120" height="120" alt="Letter from Sell to parents" title="Letter from John M. Sell to his parents, June 22, 1863" /></a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/seated_man.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family]" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/seated_man.jpg?itok=Yt5WntvL" width="120" height="120" alt="Seated man" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family" /></a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/young_girl.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family]" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/young_girl.jpg?itok=1i1VfGt_" width="120" height="120" alt="Young woman" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family" /></a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/union_soldier_with_flag.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Tintype photograph of a Union soldier with tattered US flag]" title="Tintype photograph of a Union soldier with tattered US flag"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/union_soldier_with_flag.jpg?itok=jg0Ugudl" width="120" height="120" alt="Union soldier with tattered US flag" title="Tintype photograph of a Union soldier with tattered US flag" /></a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/Exhibitions/veiled_woman.jpg" rel="lightshow[field_exhibition_image][Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family]" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family"><img src="http://library.csun.edu/sites/default/files/styles/collections_resize/public/Exhibitions/veiled_woman.jpg?itok=9CO3bxGr" width="120" height="120" alt="Seated woman" title="Photograph of an unidentified member of Sell&#039;s family" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-sca-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Post tagged as:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/correspondence">correspondence</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/special-collections">special collections</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/photographs">photographs</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/archives">archives</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/united-states">united states</a></div></div></div>Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:59:51 +0000ejarosz3384 at http://library.csun.edu